


Words Unspoken

by cheddarbug



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Love Confessions, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:21:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29227626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheddarbug/pseuds/cheddarbug
Summary: Carine wakes from a dream of a past life she doesn't remember. Nero is there to comfort her through the tangle of emotions she feels and, in so doing, makes a confession of his own.
Relationships: Nero tol Scaeva/Original Female Character(s), Nero tol Scaeva/Warrior of Light
Kudos: 10





	Words Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> This goes off of the HC that Azem and Emet-Selch had an intimate past together in which there was an established relationship. 
> 
> This is one of my favorite works I have written to date and I hope you all enjoy ^^

Carine woke with a start, chest heaving and heart pounding as she stared wide-eyed into the inky darkness above her. She could still see the tiny lights twinkling from her dream, so familiar to the lit windows of Amaurot in the Tempest and yet somehow different. She could still feel his hands resting at her waist, the tickle of tousled hair on her shoulders, the press of soft lips to her neck…

She sat up and rubbed her eyes with the heel of her palms. It all felt so real.  _ Too _ real. Echoes of a memory lost to the ages whispered words she couldn’t remember into her ears. The feeling of loss and longing clung to her bones as she sat there in the darkness. Unbidden tears welled in her eyes at her failure to remember his true face; her failure to forget the facade he bore. 

Beside her, a body stirred. For the briefest of moments, Carine was transported back to the dream. Her heart raced once again, the thought she may see him clearly now as she turned and then the disappointment to see Nero’s face illuminated by the dim light shining through the window. 

Now all that she felt was deep, gut-wrenching guilt. 

“Carine?”

She could no more stop the traitorous tears that now broke their barrier and trickled down her face than she could face him, so she looked toward the window and tried to will them away. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep. I’m fine.”

Something in her voice must have betrayed the truth because rather than turn over and go back to sleep, Nero turned on the lamp and sat up. 

“Was it a bad dream?”

She didn’t want to cry. She hadn’t wanted him to know, but he’d sounded so concerned, that there was naught else to do but press her head in her hands and let out a sob. 

Nero was wholly unprepared to wake up and see his mighty Warrior of Light crying. Ever since she’d returned from the First, there had been a distance between them, one he’d tried to break several times before realizing his usual tactics weren’t working. She didn’t talk to him about what she’d experienced, and Nero was still yet far enough removed from the Ironworks he couldn’t very well ask Garlond or any of the others what they knew. His lack of connection to anyone she held dear kept him woefully in the dark when it came to Carine, and it now left him at a complete loss of what to say or do.

“There, there,” he crooned, doing his best to sound as comforting as possible. He  _ was _ out of his element here. He pulled her to him and she relented, letting herself be drawn to his side so he could hold her. “It was just a dream. No need-”

“‘Twasn’t just a dream,” she sniffled, not even allowing him to finish. “‘Twas a memory.”

He didn’t quite know what to say to that. As was usual when it came to saving the lives of those in this world, and apparently all others, Nero assumed she was talking about the loss of someone she had come to know on the First. It didn’t take much for Carine to find an attachment, especially to those that were less fortunate, so naturally any loss that happened under her care was one she felt personally. He’d been lucky enough to be counted amongst them, if he were being honest. But there was something in her voice he couldn’t quite place, and it made him wonder if perhaps he was assuming wrong.

For the first time, Nero didn’t press her for more information. He just held her there in their room letting her cry into his chest until eventually the tears stopped. He’d never felt so lost before, not when it came to her. Sure, he’d felt frustration and annoyance amongst other feelings, but those had been easy to deal with. If he knew what was broken, he knew where to start in fixing it. Unfortunately, he knew not that which was broken this time nor where to even begin. 

Carine sniffed and sighed, clinging to him similarly to the way she had what seemed a lifetime ago when she’d drowned herself in whiskey and gave into despair. Like then, his heart ached for her, but this time he knew the root cause. He cared for her deeply and seeing someone so strong for everyone else brought so low from whatever internal struggle she was facing alone hurt him. 

It was a feeling he wasn’t fond of.

“Carine,” he spoke softly, moving her just so he could tilt her chin and make her meet his eyes. It had been so long since they’d really looked at each other, or rather, since she looked at him. Even now, her lovely eyes darted anywhere but to his own. “Talk to me. Please?”

He hadn’t meant to come across as pleading, but seeing the way she could hardly meet his gaze left a knotted feeling in his throat. Nero knew the look well as it was one she shouldered more often than not. She felt guilty. Guilty of what exactly? Guilty that she hadn’t been able to save everyone? Guilty that she’d left him behind without word or surety that she was safe? 

He didn’t even want to consider what else she might feel guilty for.

Carine’s eyes closed and she bit her bottom lip before letting out a shuddering breath. “You’re not going to like anything I have to say, Nero,” she admitted, pulling away from his touch so she could curl in on herself and rest her cheek against her knees. “There’s...there’s just so  _ much…” _

The knotted feeling grew worse as Nero tried to swallow it down. What wouldn’t he like about it exactly? Was there someone else? Come to think of it now, her Miqo’te friend he’d met at the Crystal Tower some years ago had returned and they seemed quite close. Not that they had been when he first met him, but ever since he came back and joined the Scions of the Seventh Dawn there seemed to be something more there. Something deeper. He assumed perhaps it had to do with whatever they’d faced together on the First, but perhaps...perhaps there was more to them. 

“I’ve got time,” he managed to say, fighting back the churning feeling in his gut that left him feeling disappointed in himself for feeling such a way.

What she told him, however, was nothing that he’d expected.

While it wasn’t that she’d met someone on the First or rekindled anything that may have been felt between her and G’raha Tia when they first explored together, it certainly wasn’t good. In fact, it was  _ worse. _ She explained that Zodiark, the deity in which the Ascians worshipped, was created by the Convocation in an attempt to save their world from its undoing. It required great sacrifice, so much in fact, that the fourteenth member denounced their title and walked away. In contrast, another group gathered together and in an attempt to stop Zodiark from taking more aether and all the newborn life into the world, they created Hydaelyn. According to Carine, the fourteenth member also wanted nothing to do with her creation either.

“Hydaelyn? As in the being that granted you the Blessing of Light?” Nero wondered with a tinge of rational fear. “The Mother Crystal is a  _ primal?” _

Carine nodded, drawing in closer on herself. “As I am to understand it, yes, though I cannot say to the extent of which she works or what her goals are nor how she plans to use me for those goals,” she drew a deep breath and reached over to the nightstand on her side of the bed, pulling something small and orange from the drawer before holding it out for him to take. 

It looked similar to the job stones Carine usually kept on her person, the ones that helped her channel the proper aether into doing some of the incredible feats she did in battle. Lightweight, bright orange, with a simple marking of a circle with a dot in the middle, it didn’t look like any of the other stones she had.

“That fourteenth member that walked away? Apparently that was me in a past life.”

Nero looked to her, brow furrowed with disbelief. He wasn’t a religious man and even after all the things he knew of this world and the things Carine had both accomplished and fought, it was hard to imagine anything of an afterlife let alone reincarnation. But this? It seemed utterly impossible.

“Are you telling me you’re an Ascian?” He wasn’t even sure what he wanted to know from that question. If she was, would that change things between them? Would she eventually succumb to whatever will this Hydaelyn had? Would she one day be forced to turn on him and everyone she loved dearly? 

It was little wonder she woke up sobbing.

“I-I don’t think so,” she shook her head. “At least not in the way Lahabrea or Elidibus were. Or even Nabriales or whoever else is out there running around. From - from what I can gather, my soul was sundered like most of the others and eventually landed here in this form. I can hardly understand it all myself, if I am being honest,” she explained further. “And it gets worse.”

Worse? Nero wasn’t sure what worse could possibly be. It seemed rather dire to learn that the deity that bestowed a blessing upon her was a Primal, not to mention she was apparently some reincarnated Ascian. And not just a reincarnated Ascian, but one that had walked away and vhenemately opposed the creation of Hydaelyn to begin with.

“Emet-Selch, one of the members of the Convocation. He was responsible for the rise of the Allagan Empire as well as the man that began the Garlean Empire.”

Nero felt his brows lift straight to his hairline. “An  _ Ascian _ created the two most impressive nations to have existed in the history of this star? How  _ fascinating.” _ It certainly led him to recognize just how utterly brilliant a mastermind this Emet-Selch character could be until he realized something else. “Are you telling me that Emperor Solus zos Galvus was advised by an Ascian?”

“No. He  _ was _ Solus zos Galvus. As in he possessed the man, took over his form, and brought about the Empire.”

_ That all seems about right, _ Nero considered, even more impressed now. Carine had told him several times in the past that Ascians only sought to bring chaos and calamity upon the star in an attempt to bring back their Zodiark. They’d accomplished that once before with Ancient Allag and again with the fall of Dalamud. Seven times, in total, each in line with every calamity the star has faced. This time, they’d been dangerously close to doing it again. It was utterly brilliant as well as unsettling. 

“But he’s dead now, right? You ended him on the First as well as the last unsundered,” Nero recalled. He hadn’t anticipated those words to make her tense up or bury her face into her knees once again. And just when he thought he was finally breaking down those walls she’d carefully erected. “Don’t tell me you feel  _ bad _ for him? Wasn’t it you that wanted to keep the Garleans from taking over Eorzea? Did you not make it your goal to be a thorn in their side? Not to mention, it is the Scions very burden to keep the Ascians from accomplishing their goals.”

“Yes, but-” she mumbled, her voice barely audible, “He  _ knew. _ He knew the whole time.”

Again, Nero was lost. “Who knew what?”

“Emet-Selch. He knew who, or what, I was. Or at least it was made clear to him right before I ended his life,” she said, tears now falling again. “The worst part is, now I know what I was to him, or  _ who _ I was to him rather.”

She reached out and took the forgotten stone from his hand and paired it up with a purple stone he hadn’t noticed she’d also grabbed. It was shaped just as hers, but this one matched the color of her eyes. Carine clutched them tightly in her hands, tears streaming down her face and he knew then what she meant. 

“Your dream,” he said, voice rough so he cleared it with a cough, “It was of him, wasn’t it? Of him and this Azem?”

Carine nodded, “Except I  _ was _ Azem. It wasn’t like my other visions with the Echo. I wasn’t just there to watch, not like before.”

So it was a memory. A memory of a past life with a person that wasn’t, nor could have been him. Nero was never one to admit to strong suits of jealousy. He felt it from time to time when Carine gave others her attention over him. He’d felt it most strongly once not terribly long ago every time he looked at the painting of Haurchefant hanging over the mantle. It had taken time before he’d grown to realize that she truly did love him for she would return to his arms every night, sigh his name in love and adoration, and steal kisses whenever she could. Annoying things he’d taken for granted, but things noticeably absent since she’d returned from the First. 

Knowing she dreamed of another felt like a knife to his chest, twisting and turning with each agonizing breath. 

But Nero was a rational man, or so he liked to think, and the truth of the matter was that Carine had disposed of this Emet-Selch. Therefore he couldn’t be perceived as any sort of threat to their relationship. And it wasn’t as though Carine had fraternized with him while she’d been away on the First. Unless…

He didn’t like to consider it, but Carine  _ had _ been the one initiating the distance between them since her return. She was the one avoiding eye contact and closing herself off to him. Perhaps...no.  _ No. _ Carine was a loyal woman to a fault. She’d ended whatever had been blossoming between her and Ser Aymeric in Nero’s favor so as to avoid the conflict of emotions she had between both of them. She was decisive, at least in that scenario.

_ But what if? _ He wondered, watching her now as she kept her head pressed into her knees.  _ She wasn’t sure if she were ever returning. If she didn’t know… _

“Carine?” Nero cleared his throat again, the ball of  _ feelings _ choking him as he called to her. “When you were there, on the First…” he felt like such an idiot for asking, but he needed to know. He needed to be sure. “Did you ever…?” How was he to put this exactly without offending her or seemingly accusing her? How did any man ever talk about his bloody  _ feelings _ when it came to this stuff without invoking his partner’s wrath? “These...memories. Did they come to you while he was still alive? Did you suspect? And if he knew, did he try...did you two…?”

Carine’s head shot up and her eyes went wide as she looked at him in horror. Oh great. He managed to upset her further. Wonderful.  _ Way to go, Nero Scaeva, _ he thought icily as he turned his cheek in shame.  _ Couldn’t just give her the benefit of the doubt, could you? Couldn’t just let it go. Oh no. Here I am just sticking my entire foot in my mouth when I should be comforting her. ‘Tis a wonder she came back to you at all you stupid, idiotic, rancid- _

“No! Oh gods, no,” she replied, her form suddenly pressed against his own as if it were  _ her _ job to comfort  _ him. _ “The memories came, but I never remembered them much. I think he tried to help me remember, but I failed to live up to his expectations. I wasn’t the same person he knew from long ago, and I never remembered him,” she assured him, her cheek now pressed against his shoulder. 

“So, you aren’t angry with me?” Nero dared ask, confused at her response.

“Why would I be angry with you?” she looked at him now, the tears she’d been crying now dried upon her cheeks. “I suppose I have been distant, and I just put a lot out there in front of you that took me weeks of discovering slowly. I should have been more forward, I’m sorry.”

_ How very interesting. _ It seemed as though this time he’d come out unscathed, though he still couldn’t quite understand why or how. Best not to question it further for now. “I simply did not wish to offend you by being...what’s the word?”

“An ass?”

“That’s the one.”

She smiled. It was small, hardly a twitch of her lips, but it was there. It was the first genuine smile he’d seen her wear in days, and the sight of it erased the knot in his throat at once. 

“There you are,” he said, kissing the top of her head in that way he’d learned made her feel special. “I must admit, my little bird, you had me worried for a moment.”

“You? Worried? About me?” she scoffed. “Here I am more worried about  _ you.” _

“Me?” Nero frowned. “What in seven hells possesses you to worry about me? Have I not proved I am fully capable of taking care of myself?”

The mood turned again, souring as Carine went silent once more. He’d thought they’d been making progress, but there was something yet still weighing on her mind and there would be no rest or sleep, he’d decided, until she was weightless again.

“I-I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted out,” she said finally, her words barely a whisper. 

His heart dropped. “What are you saying, Carine?” She was going to have to spell it out for him to know exactly what she meant, and he knew damn well he would be forced to make her. 

“I’m saying you were right, once upon a time,” Carine sighed, though she made no move to get away from him. “What was it you said? ‘Being with you is bad for my health’?”

Nero winced, the words cutting him to the bone much the same way they’d cut her when he spoke them. It wasn’t his best moment and far from a favored memory. Hurting her like that in an attempt to make her hate him so he could feel better about leaving her was the worst decision in his life. Seeing her cry, knowing  _ he’d _ been the reason behind those tears, was not something he was proud of and knowing she remembered them so clearly left an ache in his chest. 

How she must resent him.

“I’d said them in anger,” he tried to counter, but his voice fell flat. “It wasn’t fair to you and you know now I did not truly mean them…”

“But they  _ are _ true,” Carine sat up and looked at him, lilac eyes sparkling anew with more tears. “Haurchefant died because of  _ me. _ Hades,” she stopped and shook her head, “Emet-Selch died at  _ my _ hands. It seems as though anyone I give my heart to is bound to be hurt because of  _ me.” _

Nero did not give her a chance to escape his grasp this time. Before she could pull away and put a painful distance between them once more, he cupped her face with her hands and forced her to look him in the eyes. “Is that what you want, Carine?” he asked, searching her eyes, her soul, for the truth of the matter. If she wanted him gone, he would leave, but only if she meant every word. There would be no subjecting his heart to the pain he could feel behind a thin veil of hope if he could help it. She mattered too much to him now, not just as a savior, but as one of the most important parts of him.

Eyes of broken amethyst stared into his own, glistening with more tears until she closed them and fell into his arms. “I don’t want to lose you. I  _ can’t _ lose you,” she sobbed into his chest.

Her heartfelt cry choked him as he wrapped his arms tightly around her, crushing her to his body. She sounded so lost, words serrated in pain he couldn’t begin to understand. Every loss was personal to her; every person she met worthy of being saved and yet she was forced time and time again to either watch them fall in her place or fell them herself because she ran out of options. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, and it was one he meant to the very marrow of his bones. “I’ve tried, remember? Several times, in fact. Somehow, I seem to just keep coming back,” he added, not knowing entirely why he would other than to try and make light of a situation that was spiraling further and further from his grasp. 

“Why would you stay? Knowing what you know now?”

“Apparently fools in love lose all sense of self-preservation,” he shook his head, placing a chaste kiss atop the trussed silver waves on hers. “And I have ever been a fool when it comes to you.”

Carine seemed to calm immensely at that. Her sobbing subsided to a few hiccups and gasps before she pulled herself away and looked at him through swollen eyes. His beautiful, broken disaster, he considered as he wiped the tears from her splotchy red cheeks. Perhaps beautiful wasn’t  _ quite _ the term for this moment, but all he could think was just how much she put on herself and expected of herself without leaning upon anyone else. It was her soul that radiated the beauty he could see there behind her eyes, a soul tearing asunder from the weight of all the responsibilities she’d face and had yet to face. 

And yet, she also appeared to be struck by confusion.

“What did you just say?”

Nero furrowed his brow, unsure where her confusion lay. He thought himself perfectly clear. “I said that I am ever the fool when it comes to you,” he repeated himself. 

It was a truth that had taken time for him to accept, but it was a truth nonetheless. Every attempt he’d ever made at leaving Carine behind, whether it be the Praetorium, the Crystal Tower, or even when he just tried to travel the world to find new and exciting things, Nero always felt compelled to return to the one person that interested him the most. 

“No, not that,” she shook her head and vigorously rubbed at her eyes. “Before that.”

“Where I said I wasn’t going anywhere?” The Garlean wondered with another curious tilt of his head. “Well, I’m not. I’ve no intention of leaving you.”

“No.  _ After _ that part.”

“Then I’m afraid you have me at a loss,” he admitted.

That was apparently not what the Elezen wanted to hear, but she seemed far from giving up on it. 

“The part where you said fools in love lose all sense of self-preservation,” she said, voice dropping almost sheepishly as she did. Were it not for the dark red splotches on her face from her crying earlier, Nero would have sworn she even blushed as she said the words considering the way her gaze dropped to her lap.

“Did I say that?”

The resulting glare seemed to clear up any foggy details Nero had. 

“Did you mean it?” Carine asked, voice dipping even lower. It seemed as if she were almost afraid of his response, and he supposed she had good reason. His very first thought was to deny saying it completely followed by telling her they were just words. Neither were smart moves and neither were true.

Perhaps it was because he was tired from a long day at work and now having been up in the middle of the night that made him hesitate, or perhaps it was the heavy subjects they’d discussed earlier that held his tongue from running away. Whatever the case may have been, Nero found himself closing his mouth before he could say something stupid, or worse, hurtful, to Carine. Instead, he found himself reaching out to her, lifting her chin once again, and looking into those beautiful eyes he’d come to love. 

“I meant every word.”

She looked at him in complete and utter disbelief. “You really love me?”

Nero thought he’d shown her that or at least proven his feelings time and time again. Whether it had been fixing things around her house, listening to her prattle about the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, holding her every night, and tolerating her awful cooking, all those were things he assumed were normal in healthy relationships. Sure, he’d argue with her until they were both blue in the face and then settle any differences they may have had in the bedroom through passionate lovemaking, but that seemed to be something that only added to their unique arrangement. 

Had he wanted to call it love? No. He hadn’t believed the word to really mean anything. It was just a word. Words had no meaning unless given the power. Of course, Nero couldn’t have been more wrong. 

“Carine,” he said, caressing her cheek with his thumb, “You plague my waking moments, and my subconscious. When you’re not right in front of me, I find myself wondering where you are, what you might be doing. I’ve even wondered if you were  _ smiling,” _ he gave her a mock grimace, one not too dissimilar to the one he gave himself when he caught on to his own thoughts back then. 

“I worry for you when you’re away fighting battles against impossible foes and when you disappeared from this star to save another, there was an emptiness I couldn’t explain,” he went on, briefly recalling the lonely nights he’d spent sleeping in her bed as her scent slowly disappeared, covered by his own. The nights he’d actually  _ missed _ her terrible cooking, or the soft songs she would sing or hum to herself when she thought he couldn’t hear her. Nero had ever been an independent person. He preferred his own company and spent many a night on his own doing whatever it was that benefited him. However, he found he’d never felt more lonely than he did after Carine was gone and there was no way of him finding his way to her side. 

He pressed his forehead to hers and closed his eyes, “If that is what love is, then I’m afraid I have it terribly, and have suffered it for quite some time.”

Lips pressed to his, soft and sweet. Nero was not a poetic man by any stretch of the imagination, but in that kiss, he swore he could feel every onze of love Carine had for him. It renewed him, like spring water on a hot summer day, soothing the knot that had been choking him earlier until all he could feel was her love’s warm embrace. It caressed him, warming him, comforting him, creating a feeling of elation and euphoria he’d not once experienced before in his life. 

In her kiss, he was loved. In her kiss, he was home.

“Tell me again,” she whispered against his lips, eyelashes wet with renewed tears. 

“I love you, Carine,” he promised, claiming her lips once more in a soft, intimate kiss.

“Show me?”

He scoffed against her, lips pulling into a smile as he looked at her in wonder and curiosity. “You are a most fickle woman,” he accused, tone still sweet and kind. “I show you in every way I can possibly imagine how I feel, and you beg me to speak the words. Now that I have spoken those words you’ve longed to hear, you ask me to show you. In what way do I win?”

“You’re thinking far too deeply, Nero,” Carine glared before kissing along his stubbled jaw and down his neck. “I want you to make love to me.”

This took Nero by surprise, and he felt apprehension when normally he would have just rolled her over and submitted to her greedy demands. However, considering the state she’d woken in and all the tears shed since waking, he worried this was the wrong time. He worried that she felt she  _ had _ to do this. 

As much of a burden as he liked to be to his Warrior of Light, Nero felt she had enough to worry about rather than trying to please him and keep him happy.

“Are you sure?”

Carine nodded, lower lip pinned between her teeth. Hearing his admission of love for her, the words he’d never spoken before now, had chased away the demons that plagued the shadowy recesses of her mind. Gone were the feelings of hopelessness and failure. Gone was the longing to remember a past life that she’d apparently once lived. Gone was the weight of her burdens. 

In this moment all she wanted, all she needed, was to be as close as physically possible to him.

“Please?” she asked sweetly, kissing his cheek and the corner of his mouth. “I need you.”

Nero relented, albeit reluctantly at first with words of uncertainty. Carine, however, was persistent. She eased his uncertainty with one sweet kiss at a time, assuring him that she was quite fine and this wasn’t about trying to forget anything. He’d said he loved her. After years of conflict between their emotions, the push and pull of their difficult relationship, he’d admitted he felt for her what she’d felt for him almost all along. She wanted to  _ remember. _ She wanted to keep this memory, this feeling of nearly bursting at the seams at hearing those words uttered from his lips, locked in her heart forever. 

Bed clothes were removed and slow hands gentled themselves upon her skin. Fingers danced upon her scars, reverent and loving; a tender reminder that he adored them just as much as he adored the woman that bore them. Lips pressed to soft flesh, a deliberate, undemanding pace meant to worship and admire than hurry toward the finish. 

He loved her slowly, sitting up to hold Carine close as she rocked and rolled her hips against him. Their fingers intertwined, every part of them twisted and tangled together desperate to be closer. Blue eyes gazed into lavender pools between breaths and more whispers of love were exchanged before lips collided once again.

Nero took control, rolling her over onto her back, his body never leaving hers. He kissed the column of her throat and pressed his forehead to hers once again. His pace quickened and deepened, breaths shortened and eyes closed. She felt one of his hands reaching, seeking, and she met him halfway so their fingers could intertwine. His name became a mantra on her lips and her serrated breaths filled the room as her pleasure slowly crescendoed to climax.

He followed soon after, lips crushing hers as his body shook with release. Carine held him there, kissing him, praising him, and loving him as she felt he deserved. They stayed like that for some time, lost in each other and yet somehow found. His thumb caressed her cheek as she stared up at him and she couldn’t help but return his heartwarming smile. 

“I love you, Carine Monteil” he said, this time the words sounding more of a surprise to him than a promise. And then he smiled. Slow, deliberate, and somewhat mischievous. “Perhaps we should change that.”

Carine blinked, not quite sure she was understanding him right. As soon as he carefully rolled over, she turned to her side and furrowed her brow. “What do you mean? What  _ exactly _ are we changing?” she asked, dread filling her belly. She’d only just finally heard those words, the ones she promised herself she would never make him say. It seemed cruel to think he would want to run away from them so suddenly. 

But this was Nero she was talking about. Running when things became difficult was sort of his thing.

He hummed with eyes closed, half-smile painted on his face and leaving her to wonder and grow more anxious by the second before replying, “Carine Scaeva. Yes, I think I prefer  _ that.” _

Her heart stopped right there in her chest and her breath was stolen from her lungs. Surely she hadn’t heard him correctly, had she? No, this certainly wasn’t him. She knew better than to think Nero Scaeva would say anything like that. 

Carine became more unsure as he peeked at her from behind a fan of lashes and then down to where the ring he’d been forced to give her so many years ago still hung from her neck.

“Did you…” she began, fingers closing around the metal band, “did you just  _ propose?” _

Nero lifted his brow, devious smirk still in place. “Me? Oh no,” he scoffed and looked back toward the ceiling. “But if I had-”

She did not hesitate. She pulled the necklace over her head and removed the ring at once, placing it on her finger there so he could see. Whatever he’d been expecting, that reaction wasn’t it as he looked to her in surprise. 

“Carine, I know there is a proper way of going about things in your culture-” he began, fingers now tracing over the band she wore, but she hushed him with a finger to his lips. 

“I feel more married to you now than the day you gave me this ring,” she told him. “And whether we went to the Sanctum of the Twelve this moment, tomorrow, a fortnight, or years from now, a ceremony will not make it feel more true.” She was barely able to explain further what she meant, feeling silly once the words were out there before Nero was kissing her again in earnest. 

As the sun crept over the horizon, bathing their room in a warm, pink glow, they exchanged silent vows and, in words unspoken, exchanged their love for one another. 


End file.
